redwhitekat

I was just curious when you guys set up your total timing what did your initial timing end up at. My 74 ended up at 12 degrees

lars

That's a good setup for a mild engine. The resulting initial will depend entirely on how long the advance curve is, so resulting initial with 36 total can be anywhere in the 8 to 24 degree range. A stock or very mild engine will run well with 8 to 16 degrees of initial. An engine with a bigger cam needs at least 18 initial. If you have a big cam and no vacuum advance, you want to get the initial up into the 24-degree range.

On my own solid-roller 408 with good combustion chambers, I'm running 24 initial, 32 total, and a very short (10-degree) vacuum advance curve to get my idle timing at 32 degrees.

But for your engine, the 12 initial will work great.
Lars

redwhitekat

Thanks lars appreciate your help as always

scottw

I'm about 14.5 initial. Set the timing to be all in by 2800.

hugie82

I'm about the same. If you experience pinging just back it off until it stops! Set it and forget it until next year

scottyp99

'80 'vette, L48, auto trans, with the timing set at 36 degrees @ 2800 rpm, it's at 16 at idle, with the vacuum advance disconnected. So the distributor gives 20 degrees of mechanical advance.

Check out this link:

http://www.gmheritagecenter.com/docs...t-Corvette.pdf

Page 74 tells what distributor came with what engine, and the specs for it. All sorts of other interesting little tidbits in there, too.

Scott

redwhitekat

Nice article according to that they wanted at 8 degrees initial I wonder what they set the total timing in those days or did they go by sctricly initial timing ???

scottyp99

All you have to do is look at the centrifugal and vacuum advance specs right below that and do a little simple math.

Scott

spikebot 81

Inital set at 20 deg, vac advance 14 deg, mech 15 deg. RHS cylinder heads. 60103 luanti cam. 9.5 to 1 compression. I do have traction issues at times

resdoggie

I just finished modding my mechanical advance to limit the total mech'l advance so I could increase my initial to 16* and still be all in at my target of 34* @ 3000 rpm.